Slight chance asteroid hits earth in 2032

  • Thread starter Thread starter nycfan
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So hypothetical. 5 years from now, the trajectory has firmed up. There is a 100% chance it hits the Earth off the coast of Central America.

This is not a planet killer but the resulting tsunami swamps the entire isthmus of Panama. There's plenty of time to evacuate people so no loss of human life but everything there is going to get pretty wrecked including the Panama canal and a bunch of people's homes and businesses. No or very minimal damage to US territories.

Option 1, you let the asteroid hit and deal with the aftermath.
Option 2, you send a nuke up to try to alter the asteroid's course away from the earth. 50% chance it moves the asteroid away missing earth completely, 50% chance it breaks the asteroid into a number of pieces that may randomly hit the US or another part to the world but smaller damage.

What do you do?
 
nycfan said:


[1% ain’t nothing for something like this]

“… Scientists put the odds of a strike at slightly more than 1%.

“We are not worried at all, because of this 99 percent chance it will miss,” said Paul Chodas, director of NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies. “But it deserves attention.” …”

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Will anyone competent be left to monitor it?
Click to expand...

Normally chances are much less than 1%
 
nycfan said:
No it is not, just engaging in some whistling through the graveyard humor. Sounds like it would be more like the Tunguska event, if that, though in a much more heavily populated earth. A bit of a where would it crash bingo would come into play.

earth asteroid GIF
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Yes, depending on where it hit, we could be talking anywhere from "limited impact on human life" to "worst disaster in human history." The good news is that even if it hits earth, the chances of it hitting a major metropolitan area would still be low. What I don't know is how well scientists would be able to predict the exact impact area ahead of time.
 
BlooVooDoo said:
I do too, but I’m a fan of Von Trier’s work in general (even Dogville which seems even more poignant now than twenty years ago).
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Huh. I love his first three films to get widespread distribution (Zentropa, Breaking the Waves, Dancer In The Dark). Dogville was a slog. I haven't liked anything he's done since. It is like he's a completely different filmmaker. Probably the drinking and the depression and the pushback from Bjork was impactful.
 
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